Ornaments are one of the many things that fascinate me about music from outside the Western tradition. Indeed, outside of early music circles, the use of ornaments in classical music is largely limited to grace notes, trills and perhaps the occasional mordent. If you write anything more 'advanced' than that in a new piece there is a good chance it will get overlooked, or played wrong - indeed even mordents often get a 'do you mean..' response from players.
Compare that to say the Indian tradition where there is literally the concept that you never play a note 'as is', the pitch is always on the move, pretty much every note has some kind of embellishment. And any Indian musician will know (and have a name for) each of the myriad types of ornament, and be aware of the subtlest of differences, the speed of vibrato, how that speed accelerates, the type of staccato the embellishment ends with etc etc.
I don't have any desire to imitate Indian music, but I do long to find ways to expand the expressive capabilites of my music by accessing some of these ways of playing. I find them a far richer and more interesting area to explore than, say, quarter tones, or developing some new tuning system. So many of them are tantalisingly beautiful, not that difficult once you get the hang of things, and offer so much to add to our 'straight' way of playing in the Classical world.
One resource I have found quite useful in this regard is called Indian Melodies for Violin by Candida Connolly, published by Schott
It goes through some of the standard ornaments, and crucially, includes a CD so you can listen in and get a sense of them in practice.
I think my use of 'folk' ornaments has been gradually expanding over the years as I find ways to notate and use them that Western players can deal with. One of the problems of course is that our instruments are different and often designed specifically to play the 'pure' note itself, and not the subtle shades in between. Take the flute for example, an Indian Bansuri flute:
there are no keys, allowing the fingers to roll on and off the hole to bend the pitch. That's just not possible on a keyed Western flute. But you can bend the pitch with the mouth, so some of the effect may be possible.
I'm currently writing a piece commissioned by the San Diego-based Art of Elan series, for flute, violin and harp. Although it's only a small aspect of the piece, I'm hoping to integrate some of the more Indian-style ornaments for the first time. I've arranged to get together with the fantastic flautist Alex Housego who, having spent some of his childhood in India, is familiar with and plays both Indian bansuri flute and the traditional Western flute. My plan is to write the ornaments I want to, check them over with Alex, and then get him to record them on a Western flute so I can give the San Diego players a better idea of what I'm after. It's an experiment, but hopefully should yield some really interesting results.
Update
Here is a video of the resulting piece, The Eye of Night performed by the Myriad Trio in San Diego
A busy writing time for me at the moment, but I'm delighted that the month of May brings three performances at the 2010 Spoleto USA 2010 Festival of Gumboots by the group John Adams recently called "my favorite of all groups" - the St Lawrence String Quartet. It's now 18 months or so since the quartet premiered Gumboots at Carnegie's Zankel Hall; and the piece has since had a thrilling life of its own with performances on three continents. But in its heart and indeed its inspiration it belongs to Todd Palmer at the St Lawrences. Only a shame I can't be there!
I was going to draw attention to Metropolis Ensemble's forthcoming concert which features my new recorder+string quartet arrangements of Dowland pieces, Tears, Puffes, Jumps and Galliards; but according to their website it seems to be already sold out.
Last time I was in New York I had a long chat (naturally featuring more bottles of wine than people present) with Andrew Cyr about Metropolis's approach to audience building. These guys have a truly diverse and engaged audience, they invariably sell out their concerts, despite the fact that the majority of what they offer is contemporary music. Andrew confirmed that it takes a lot of thought and effort, but what his group shows is that it really is possible, there is no crisis in classical music, given the right leadership. It's encouraging that people are beginning to take note of Metropolis's work now. It has the future written all over it.
I still find it a quiet source of pride how few composers are ready for that moment in the spotlight, we emerge tramp-like and awkward - the epitomy of uncool, uncommercial - we come on stage in our un-ironed jackets, or with a sock still stuck in one trouser leg. Then we scurry across the stage as quick as we can, not knowing where to put ourselves, and take an awkward bow. There's an interesting paradox in the way so many composers are so unnatural on the stage: we spend our entire lives trying to create something that is after all intended for performance 'on the stage'. We are aware of the finest, subtlest details of how certain effects in our music will come across - we can subdue an entire crowd, get them laughing or crying with our notes; and yet when we have to present ourselves in person on the stage we are likely as not to stumble on the steps before we even get there...
Yesterday I went over to Paris to meet up with my friend the wonderful soprano Jessica Rivera who was singing - with her usual effortless grace and expressivity - in John Adams's gobsmackingly beautiful opera A Flowering Tree, conducted by the incredible force of nature that is Joana Carneiro. I'd heard lots of great things about this young conductor who was Esa Pekka Salonen's assistant at LA Phil and recently took over the reins at the Berkeley Symphony, but nothing prepared me for what she's really like. I don't think I've ever experienced such power and energy combined with nuance and control from a conductor. She's an amazing life force and is without any question in my mind destined for the absolute peak of the profession. An amazing concert all round.
And tomorrow I'm back on L'Eurostar. This Tuesday sees the Belgian premiere of Gumboots performed by Eddy Vanoosthuyse and members of the Brussels Philharmonic in the historic city of Gent (or Ghent depending on your preference).
Speaking of John Adams, I was the book shop the other day and saw a kids introduction to classical music. Alongside Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, to my delight the book included this page:
"John Adams is the odd one out in this book. Why? Because he's still alive!"
The book by the way is Naxos's My First Classical Music Book.
The day before my last trip to NYC Andrew Cyr from Metropolis Ensemble told me he was putting together a benefit concert for Haiti and would I like to contribute something new. Andrew's plan was to have smaller groups of players performing, but then bring them together for one piece (mine) at the end. I basically had less than 24 hours to put something together, but I didn't want to let Andrew down - but what on earth to do. The fact that it was a Valentine's Day event was a pretty important signpost, and after rapidly rejecting a few ideas I remembered a beautiful choral peice by Thomas Tallis that I had come across a few weeks before, called 'If Ye Love Me' - the title was appropriate! The text and the music spoke not just of love but of comfort, and these seemed entirely the right role given the event.
So with a little super-fast editing, arrangement was made, score and parts were created and I hopped on the plane to New York. Unfortunately because my flights were already booked I couldn't adjust them to stay a few more days to see the concert, but Metropolis do such an amazing job of filming and archiving all their events that the lovely video that has just come through captures the event tremendously well.
Oh and in case you were wondering what's going on in the opening violin solo, I instruct the violinist (the incredible Kristin Lee) to serenade the audience moving around between phrases.
As any composer will tell you, a premiere is an honour, but a far greater one is to have a second or third performance. It's not just the fact that someone has liked your work enough to do it again, it's also your own mental state, which is completely different once the anxieties of the premiere are out of the way. It's a different experience altogether - at a premiere the slightest variation away from your mental image of the piece causes convulsions of panic - whether the difference is caused by the performer or by your own mistake - and in fact, working out whether the problem is yours or the performer's is one of the chief causes of stress. But on a repeat performance that stress is reduced by a hyperbolic amount. And as time goes on if you're lucky enough to have still further performances, it reduces pretty much to zero. Indeed, you often hear older composers talking or reacting to their own work as if they were pieces by some other, long-gone composer, which in a sense I suppose they are.
Well all this is by way of pointing out that two of my recent pieces have entered into the blissful phase of life whereupon the number of performances they have received can no longer be counted on one hand; indeed, Gumboots, my Clarinet Quintet, will soon have had more than the total number of digits of any kind a person has. Forthcoming performances include later this month in the beautiful town of Gent in Belgium by Eddy Vanoosthuyse, clarinet, soloists of the Brussels Philharmonic; by ACJW on tour in Europe, and a repeat performance by the St Lawrence Quartet with Todd Palmer at the Spoleto Festival. The other piece is my solo harp piece Caja de Musica, which, thanks to the love and nurturing offered it by the indefatigable Bridget Kibbey is now approaching its 10th performance since its premiere last year. This month she plays it over in California, and later in May in John Zorn's The Stone in NYC.
On a separate note, I attended the John Adams concert at the Barbican a few days, where, alongside the European premiere of City Noir and other delights, there was a wonderfully foot-stomping performance of the Stravinsky Concerto for piano and winds by pianist Jeremy Denk. Jeremy has the most fabulous, if slightly too infrequently updated blog - he doesn't post often, but when he does they are most splendid.
Update
The Sacramento Bee has a nice write up on Bridget and her forthcoming performances.
During my recent trip to NYC I spent the snowy morning dubbed by the media as 'snowmageddon' in the warm cocoa company of Frank J Oteri from American Music Center, recording an interview for their New Music Box site. The interview features extracts of Gumboots, A Bird in Your Ear and Groanbox and Frank offers a (very flattering) take on my career state-side in the accompanying article.
Giora Feidman and members of the Gershwin String Quartet in the studio in Germany, recording a new CD which includes some arrangements I did for them. This will be my first commercially released CD.
